Thinking in vain...

I have been behind the 8 ball ever since I got back from out-of-town last week. It was fun, but damn my house needs to be vacuumed.

I'm recovering from a bit of heat exhaustion and sun-burn as well. It's what happens when you're a blond airhead who forgets to drink water and wear sunscreen as she runs all over the VT campus and watches the VT/GT game on the sunny side of the stadium. My sister made me sit for most of the first quarter while I drank water and had another cold bottle on the back of my neck. She's smart. And I'm finally feeling normal.

I had fun stuff to blog about and now I've forgotten everything and lost all the links. I have been reading your blogs, I just haven't gotten the gumption to grace your blogs with my opinion. ;)

Oh, as you know, I hate dolls - so this is FREAKING CREEPY. It's freaking me out just looking at the page long enough to get the link. I watched the first 13 seconds of that video and had to turn it off.

We have some Virginia Tech football news to announce: Tyrod Taylor is back.

Beamer said he informed Glennon of the decision Monday and that Glennon was very disappointed. Taylor is excited, Beamer said. Neither quarterback will be available for interviews this week.

I feel slightly bad for saying this but perhaps if Glennon didn't crumble under the pressure and throw 2 interceptions on Saturday he wouldn't be "very disappointed." I guess though that I too would be very disappointed. I'd want to prove myself too after the taunting and hate mail he's gotten.

But, I still can't wait for Saturday. :D

VT goes back to 2 Quarterback system.

Every McDonald's within the listening area of a local radio station is giving away free breakfast and coffee to all first responders who come in in their uniforms.

And there's way too much argument going on about whether or not to light the damn star. BTW - they're turning it off. They turned it off for September 11th too.

I also don't think some people realize how much of their tax money it wastes to change the bulbs on that thing....

http://www.remembrance.vt.edu/

God that was painful to watch.

I mean for god's sakes the game isn't over if you've still got 4 minutes left in the 4th quarter.

I don't know how I feel about this, so I'm just posting it.... via the VT Memorial MySpace Blog

A local voice in the national RocaWear Fall Campaign

Ciara has been tapped as the new face of Jay-Z's Rocawear line for women.

The 21-year-old "Goodies" singer celebrated Wednesday night at a small, intimate dinner at Buddakan in NYC with Rocawear co-founder Jay-Z, rapper Young Jeezy, photographer Mark Seliger, who will shoot the ads, and stylist June Ambrose.

The new campaign, which debuts this fall, is entitled, "I Will Not Lose" and will also feature video testimonials by individuals who have overcome various hardships.

Amy Steele, the editor-in-chief of the Virginia Tech newspaper Collegiate Times, is just one of the participants who will be profiled and share her story in the campaign.

*emphasis added

Sometimes things aren't necessarily completely bad taste, but they leave you feeling icky. This news story makes me feel icky.

The book deal was "solidified" April 26, Davis said, 10 days after the shooting.

Tech students land book deal.

And in related news, now people are registering the victims' names... talk about making you feel icky.

"I'm really disturbed to hear that people are registering domains that are the names of the victims," he said. "That's really taking the tastelessness to a whole other level."

'Squatters' nab names of victims for web.

• The radio played George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" this morning. I have an older sister (12 years) so I have a great appreciation for all things George Michael and Youthquake. I'm sure she'd love that.

• People who have the equivalents of Guitar Star, Guitar Hero or Hot Mama probably aren't. I saw one this morning with BSNSMAN, I think I feel sorry for his family.

• My mother told me never to get a personalized license plate because it was easier for serial killers to find you.
• I never spell license right on the first try.

• The painting of our porch and trim is taking a lot longer than I anticipated, and leaving a very fine white dust everywhere.

• I got to level/question 101 on that game. I don't think I can go any further without wasting a very large amount of time. This is why I don't play video games. I can stop once I finish and I never have to do it again... I just have to finish.

• Our neighbors puppy (a Bernese Mountain Dog) named Milly got her head stuck in the fence earlier this week. Her cries are heart-wrenching. My sister held her head until the family came home and took the fence apart.

• I nearly wrecked this morning because I was looking at a business who'd put the VT Ribbon graphics on their windows and a car stopped at a green light. I didn't though.

• I thought I broke my toe. False alarm.

• I'll be in Blacksburg tomorrow for Sud Flood.

• Didn't get to Here's To The Hokies yesterday. I'm a baby and it was cold and rainy. Hopefully it'll warm up for tomorrow.

• I have turned my TV off before midnight every night this week.

• Happy Friday. :)

Petition to rename Norris Hall Librescu Hall, via the MySpace VT Memorial Page.

Press Conference this morning:

They said all slain students would be posthumously awarded the degrees they were pursuing.

In addition, the university announced that Virginia Tech's 26,000 students will be given a choice whether to return to class for the remaining weeks of the semester when courses resume on Monday.

"We're going to encourage them to continue with class," said Mark McNamee, university provost. "But also do it in the context of what they're capable of."

I think that's fantastic.

First off, I apologize if the VT posts are getting daunting to anyone that regularly reads this. I can't help it. It seems that writing about it is helping me deal with it a little. Maybe I'll try to make this my last.

Secondly - I wish the National media would stop showing that evil, little creep. He's everywhere. Now all they have is a split screen - you can't watch anything because there's his damn photographs and video everywhere, even when they're interviewing victims. They're burning the image of him in everyone's minds - he's unimportant - the people that are important are his 60+ victims and their friends and family.

There was a psychologist on Anderson Cooper 360 and he begged everyone to stop showing those clips. This horrible kid looked up to those Columbine shooters, he wanted the fame and the martyrdom and everyone is giving it to him. He doesn't fit the profile of normal college shooters, he fits the one of high school shooters, I'd be inclined to think he's been thinking of this for years.

If the administration and faculty and hell, high school teachers are at fault - then perhaps every single one of us is.

My best friend is a 7th grade English teacher, some of her kids are reading at 5th grade levels or can't read at all - and she's so overworked with having to write papers and lesson plans and being required to advise clubs that she has no extra time to work with troubled students or students falling behind. Teachers are so overworked and our school system is so taxed, I think it's hard for them. Hard for them to reach out to students or hard for them to intervene.

We've also created a politically correct society where this kid's freedom of speech is protected - no matter how violent or hateful (Re: horror films and Neo-nazis in Skokie respectively ). His right to express himself is protected. His plays and short stories are just as disgusting and disturbing as any horror movie. But he never did anything. If the school had started monitoring him or expelled him and someone found out, I'd be willing to bet the ACLU would have swooped to campus faster than the vulture-like journalists that are there now.

This kid managed to fall through the cracks in each instance. But how would any of you have stopped him?

I think it's not only human nature to want to blame someone, but I think everyone wants to think this was preventable (and I'm not saying that is wasn't). People argue that maybe if this gun law was passed or that mental health law was passed or if he'd been whatever that it wouldn't of happened. People can't handle the idea that the faculty, students and police involved did everything they could have and it still happened. I don't think as a society we like to think that evil can happen and that it's our job to pass laws to stop and prevent it.

As one of the English faculty points out - "Look, all our hearts are broken. There's no need to add to the pain with guilt."

I would hope people could learn from this and place blame the one and only place it should be at this point - on him. Firing President Steger and Chief Flinchum and others will only ruin more lives.

The only people I've seen handling this with decency is the local media. K92, a local radio station, announced this morning that they will not say the killer's name or play any audio clips of his videos... I think Q99 is doing the same - the other stations I don't know about because I don't listen, but I'd assume they're doing something along the same lines. As they pointed out this morning - we don't care about him, we care about the victims and they are going to be the only people we talk about.

I realize the national news channels want their ratings - but the degree that they are showing this is sick in itself.

So, being very unlike me – and by that I mean confrontational – I posted a comment similar to my post below on the AdRants post that got under my skin.

I received a very nice email from the man that wrote that post. I feel kind of bad now. I don't know if I should've said what I did, but I have now. I still don't necessarily agree with him on the way he did it, but the explanation was appreciated.

In terms of the graphic, it was not my intention to make light of the situation but, rather to illustrate the supreme personal nature of it and how it affected many people personally. Coupling that with my apparently political rant may not have been the best choice but it just moved me at that moment.

Last I heard the two victims at Roanoke Memorial are still alive, but in serious condition. Both are in very bad shape and the girl who was in pre-op with my mother has horrific gun shot wounds to her face.

Good news I guess is that they are both still alive. My prayers are that they stay that way. But that poor girl will surely have many more surgeries to endure.

No clue yet on the four still at New River Valley. For those that don't know - the most critical cases were sent to the Carilion network of hospitals - not Montgomery Regional or Lewis Gale, with the most severe going to Roanoke Memorial.

Disclaimer: Image isn't Roanoke Memorial - it's at Virginia Tech.

I liked this, mainly because I agree with him and he says it so much better than I have been.

People's Weekly Brief: Virginia Tech Survivors Deserve Peace and Honor, Not Speculation

And there’s an instinctive drive to place blame… a desire to say that if only certain actions had been taken then we could have prevented the loss of so many lives. No sooner did the magnitude of the incidents at Virginia Tech become apparent late Monday morning than the questions started to surface.

Were all reasonable actions taken following the first of the two attacks? Should the campus have been shut down and classes been canceled after the first bodies were discovered in the residence hall? During the past year were there opportunities to remove the killer from the student body as a result of past infractions or improper behavior?

In the brief time since the tragedy, there has been a steady drumbeat of speculation, second-guessing and hyperbole. Even before the evidence has been fully gathered, investigated and analyzed there has been no shortage of “experts” willing to venture into the media to offer up opinions of what went wrong.

How about this for an idea: How about we honor the grieving families, survivors and student body through our thoughts and prayers and otherwise respectfully keep quiet while allowing the FBI, state and local authorities to finish the investigation without throwing speculative spitballs at everyone from the campus police to the university president.

I read this post tonight over at AdRants.

I'm in shock. Now first off, I think everyone has the right to their opinion. He has his. He has different experiences from me and probably came from a different kind of upbringing - so he thinks things differently. Although, I don't think anyone (including me) appreciates blanketly being labeled a idiotic moron just for disagreeing with someone.

My views on gun control are different than his, but that's not what upset me about his post.

No, what upset me is he has used a horrific event to step onto his soap box. He has used an event that is rippling and affecting thousands of lives in this Valley. Virginia Tech is the community of Blacksburg, people from all over the Valley send their children and loved ones there to learn and to teach and to work.

He never acknowledged our heartache, our horror. He trivialized the event with a flippant "Wait until your kid gets shot by some student in a bad mood with a gun."

And in my opinion, shame on him. It's shameful that not even two full days after these senseless acts that someone would use them as an avenue for their opinions without acknowledging the horror or the sadness... and in the vile way that he did it.

I hope you feel you got your point across.

Update: I actually posted a similar comment to this post over at AdRants. I got an email back too. Perhaps, I myself, lashed out a little - tired of all the finger-pointing and politics I've seen on the news. He seems like a nice man.

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

Perhaps I was too callous yesterday. The issues irritating me last night are inconsequential to the events.

If it was a perfect world no one would remember that madman's name. Several times I've heard people mention William Morva. How many people remember his name, but can't recall the names of the brave deputy and security guard he shot?

My father knew a lot of the faculty in the engineering department. Thankfully, none of his friends were killed, we don't think any were injured. But he had met Liviu Librescu. I hope the heroic stories like his, Derek O'Dell and law enforcement's are what are burned into people's minds. After all the senseless violence, stories like his remind me of the goodness inherent in most people. I can't help but be completely overcome with sadness at the thought of wonderful people and students with so much of their lives in front of them being taken away with such senseless acts of evil.

I pray the violence is over... words from me seem useless right now.

http://blog.myspace.com/vtmemorial_41607

Update: Unfortunately, I've found out that my father knew Kevin Granata. My prayers go out to the close friends and family of this brilliant man.

What a horrific day.

We got to Roanoke Memorial at about 9:50 this morning for my mother's shoulder surgery. There in the waiting room was the breaking news that there was a shooting at Virginia Tech. At that point it was only 2.

We watched as the events unfolded. I can't tell if it was 2 or 3 or 5 victims that were brought to Memorial. First it was 3, then 2... then 2 more but I don't know if it's the same 2. One of the victims was in anesthesiology with my mother, she'd been shot in the face. My mother, being an old ER nurse listened as the nurses and doctors swarmed to her aid. My mother said that she was so proud of how everyone handled the situation. And that's a high compliment from my mother. My mother prayed for her as she went into surgery.

My biggest problem now is the journalists tearing into the VT president and the police officers. I've heard the exact same information that everyone else has. Maybe more as I've been in front of the TV since 10:00 this morning and I've seen it unfold.

Campus police and administration never make snap decisions - and they usually make cautious ones that don't close school down. 2 hours to inform the entire student body of a possible domestic shooting if the building has been secured is understandable in my opinion. Especially when they were in the midst of questioning a suspect and locking down an elementary school. When we had women getting attacked on campus, it took DAYS to inform the campus and the emails always down-played the incident.

Yes, a shooting is completely different. But it takes time to find things out and they still don't know that the incidents are related. I'm sure that if the President and Chief of the VT Police could, they would go back and change the decisions they made.

This isn't the time, but Monday-morning quarter backing is real easy once all the facts are out. At the time I'm sure no one had any idea this kid was planning to lock himself in an academic building and go on a shooting spree.

Some people are tacky as well - one guy actually called into the radio and said he was a UVA fan but he'd pray for the victims. What was the point of that? And Liberty issuing that statement? Tacky.

My heart and prayers go out to the victims and the victims' friends and family. I still can't believe this has happened. I'm still hoping and waiting to hear that friends and friends' children are okay.